The CWUR listed Harvard at the top of seven of its eight criteria, including quality of education, alumni employment, influence, and broad impact. Harvard ranked second in CWUR's patent list, while the Massachusetts Institute of Technology took the top spot.

While the 2,000-university list represents schools from across the globe, eight of the CWUR's top 10 universities are in the U.S. The other two top 10 schools — the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford — are in the U.K.

The CWUR is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and claims to be "the only global university ranking that measures the quality of education and training of students as well as the prestige of the faculty members and the quality of their research without relying on surveys and university data submissions."